Page 12 of The Malevolent Eight

‘Do not seek to curry favour with me, Fallen One. It’s your obstinacy which triggers the big brute’s tantrums. You should have let him give the speech back in that last Infernal town.’

‘Exactly!’ Corrigan said. He paused in his assault on the walls to turn to Temper, hopping about impatiently, no doubt eager to get to some good old-fashioned pummelling before the main event, gorging on the blood of the recently deceased. ‘You ask me, buddy,you’rethe one who ought to be leading this crew.’

The assault on my leadership qualities didn’t bother me half as much as Corrigan thinking Temper understood him.

‘You recall he’s a kangaroo, right?’ I asked. ‘Not a totemist somehow attuned to whichever plane of reality produces monstrosities like Temper, but anactualkangaroo.’

Never one to be swayed by logic, Corrigan countered, ‘That’s just your bigotry talking. If you’d bothered to spend more time with him, you’d’ve figured out that the only reason Temper doesn’t talk is because he’s a genius andsomeof us lack the cerebral and philosophical capacity to appreciate his brilliance.’

Alice sounded curious now. ‘Yet he considersyouhis intellectual equal?’

Ignoring her, the big thunderer gestured elaborately to Temper. ‘Go on, boy, show these ignorant heathens a fraction of your peerless mental talents.’

Even Shame was concerned now, although given she currently looked like a bipedal, two-headed alligator, that concern was probably more to do with the fact that Corrigan was embarrassing us in front of her former Auroral compatriots. ‘Perhaps we could save this demonstration forafterwe’ve freed the spies?’ she suggested.

‘Shut it,’ Corrigan said rudely, urging Temper to demonstrate his genius. ‘What’s six hundred and ninety-six multiplied by nine times the average length of the summer season at the equator divided by the speed of a drop of water falling from the mouth of a south-flying falcon?’

‘Corrigan, remember those inner walls you were supposed to be knocking down before the Auroral troops on the other side get their shit together and launch a counter-assault?’ I asked.

‘Shh,’ he replied, although he did resume hurling Tempestoral hell at the fortress. ‘Just watch.’

For several seconds, the kangaroo stood there looking confused, as if wondering what he was expected to do. His weight shifted from one hind leg to the other, his ears went back and with one paw he scratched the side of his furry head.

‘The animal looks constipated,’ Alice observed. ‘Is he about to leap up into the air and land on his face again?’

‘Don’t distract him,’ Corrigan warned. ‘This isdifferent. Surely you can recognise hisconcentratinglook?’

Surprisingly, the kangaroo grew still, a placid grin appearing on his muzzle as he leaned down and scratched numbers into the dirt with his front paw.

Aradeus gasped. ‘Has he—? Are those—?’

Galass peered closer. ‘It looks like he’s written. . . forty-two?’

‘Behold!’ Corrigan declared triumphantly, indigo bolts erupting from his outstretched hands to take the place of his earlier lava spell. He started obliterating the stone with increased fervour. ‘My boy’s a genius! I bet not one of you even knows the speed a drop of water falls from a south-flying falc—’

‘Youidiot,’ I interrupted, ‘I may not know the speed of a– whatever the hell you said– but it doesn’t take a genius to know it can’t possibly be forty-two. Temper’s off by tens of thousands, at least.’

As the other walls fell, Corrigan ceased his assault and glanced down at the numbers scrawled in the dirt. ‘Still impressive,’ he grumbled.

Alice snorted, her bat wings twitching– that’s how you know when she’s laughing, since nothing approaching mirth ever crosses her lips. ‘I can no longer tell which of the two of you, man or beast. is more stupid.’

With impeccable timing, Corrigan and Temper simultaneously pointed at each other.

Leading a crew of mentally deranged and morally compromised wonderists on a quest to prevent an eternal supernatural war really is more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.

I felt a tug on my arm and turned to find Galass staring at me tentatively. The wan expression on her face told me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

‘Cade, these soldiers– they’re ordinary humans, not angelics. Most of them aren’t even Glorians.’

Ah, shit.I’d assumed any clandestine Auroral enclave would be guarded by high-ranking angelics, or maybe Glorian Justiciars and Parevals.Does that mean whichever Celestines authorised this prison have been keeping it secret from the rest of the Auroral Hierarchy?

Even without supernatural oversight, the tiny fortress was impressively garrisoned. I counted more than forty soldiers in gleaming armour bearing pikes and shields.

‘Brother Cade, you yourself affirmed this as our coven’s one unbreakable rule,’ Aradeus said.

I considered reminding him that no rule is unbreakable– to be honest, I hadn’t expected this one to last as long as it had. Look, I get that my plan of convincing the Aurorals, Infernals and their respective human recruits of the tragic consequences of war by literally raining bloodcurdling hells on them might not fit with traditional pacifist ideals– but show me a war that was prevented by pacifism and I’ll be the first to shackle myself to a post in the middle of a battlefield and go on a hunger strike.

I’d spent almost seven years selling my services as a mercenary wonderist. I’d fought in dozens of armed conflicts and I can attest that every single one of them was a pointless waste of life in service to a cause no one remembered the year after it was over because by then there was some new enemy to fight. My experiences had taught me two important lessons: first, there’s no such thing as a just war, and second, armed conflict is best understood as an extension of economics.

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